Buckingham Group Case Study: Behavioural and Culture Change Programme

The Strategy

A staged approach was taken initially with a 5-year-plan, which has been updated every 12-18 months thereafter.  Buckingham Group Contracting Ltd (BGCL) recognise the journey of safety culture development that the Company has undergone over the last few years and continue to focus on the development of the ‘All Ways Safety Programme’, as defined below:

• • Involvement in health and safety of the frontline employees is critical.

• • An increasing proportion of frontline employees are willing to work with management to improve health and safety.

• • Management recognise that a wide range of factors cause accidents and high potential events, and that root causes often originate from management decisions.

• • The majority of people accept personal responsibility for their own health and safety and caring for their colleagues.

• • Health and safety performance is actively and continuously monitored with the resultant data used to inform ongoing management decisions.

The Pillars of All Ways Safety

People need to demonstrate strong, visible and effective leadership and communication; by all who are in a position of responsibility, from Directors to Supervisors.

Everyone is required to take personal responsibility for their own health, safety and wellbeing and the safety of those working with them.

Engagement with everyone working on the site in health and safety decisions is essential to generate a change in behaviour.

A ‘Just Culture’ ensures that by working together and receiving continuous coaching, we celebrate achievements and success whilst addressing systemic failures relating to processes, competence and supervision.  In a just culture, people involved in unsafe acts are treated fairly, and those who intentionally break the rules are managed appropriately.

Respect holds everything together.  Respectful behaviour displays personal integrity and professionalism, practices fairness and understanding, demonstrates respect for individual rights and differences and encourages accountability for one’s actions.

Measuring and learning from performance is an important part of developing health and safety culture.

Baseline Assessment and ‘Temperature Check’

At the outset and annually thereafter, a health and safety culture survey is undertaken for employees, supply chain organisations and customers.  The results of this survey provided invaluable insight into the existing culture of the business; highlighting areas of strength as well as opportunities for improvement.  This information informed the Strategy whilst also providing a baseline for measuring improvement.  This survey now includes other perceptions towards environment, quality, health and wellbeing.

How does it work in practice?

The Senior Team introduce the Programme to all new starters as part of their induction.  All new starters attend training and awareness sessions to enable the BGCL culture to develop.  A significant positive factor has been that all the business units, projects and support functions are expected to undertake a series of activities for ‘All Ways Safety’ which are included within company performance reports.  Support functions are also included recognising they had a positive contribution to make ‘All Ways Safely’ a success.

All projects have the flexibility to develop their own plan for how they will adopt ‘All Ways Safely’.  This enables ownership at project level as well as generating new ideas to keep the programme moving forwards.  Individual goals are linked to appraisals, as well as project culture maturity assessments.

All projects have Health and Safety Coaches appointed to support and enable a positive and engaging culture on their site.  The Coach will engage then team’s raising self-awareness through a focus on behavioural approach.  The Coach also supports the ongoing development of the All Ways Safely Programme and represents their colleagues at project, company and industry safety leadership and engagement forums.

Conclusion

BGCL has a proven record within industry for delivering high quality work safely.  The All Ways Safely programme seeks to harness the positive ‘Can Do’ attitudes and culture that are the basis of the company’s successful growth to date, in order to continually develop the teams to learn and improve when it comes to delivering safety and health in the workplace.  The business has seen great benefits from the All Ways Safely programme over the last decade, as are committed to continue this journey with support from Gateway Consultants (HSW).

Share this